TALLAHASSEE — A grizzled legislative veteran on Wednesday warned Gov. Rick Scott’s new cost-cutting chief that little may come of his proposals without the political courage to take on Tallahassee’s influential lobbying corps.

Chief Operating Officer David Wilkins outlined his ideas in an appearance before the Florida Government Efficiency Task Force just before the constitutional panel finalized its recommendations to Scott and the Legislature.

“You have to have the political courage to know that you’re going to go against this particular industry or this particular lobbying group,” said Sen. Mike Bennett, a Republican task force member from Bradenton.

Bennett, a lawmaker for 12 years, said Wilkins and Scott will never be able to make changes affecting health care without upsetting doctors or affecting the construction industry without upsetting developers.

“You talk about political courage, that’s the governor’s hallmark,” Wilkins later said. That’s what Scott is trying to instill in other members of this administration, he said.

The task force recommendations include changes in state employee health care insurance the panel estimates would save up to $334 million annually. One proposal is uniform employee contributions. Thousands of higher ranking employees as well as lawmakers now pay much lower rates than most state workers. Many of the other recommendations deal with procurement policies. The task force’s goal was to find ways to save the state $3 billion.

Wilkins, who does double duty as Department of Children and Families secretary, said some of his ideas incorporate the 15-member task force’s recommendations. The panel meets every four years.

Among the initiatives Wilkins listed: buying commodities in bulk instead of relying on purchases by individual agencies; developing vendor performance evaluations; and consolidating functions such as personnel. Others include consolidating real estate leases, standardizing the measurement of employee efficiency and outsourcing information technology.

The latter proposal also generated a response from Bennett. He complained computers in various state agencies cannot communicate with each other.

“We spend ‘cogillions’ up here on technology and unfortunately we let the geeks take control,” Bennett said. “They make a system that is so complicated nobody can use it.”

He said the state would do better buying proven off-the-shelf technology than the custom systems it has now.

Wilkins said he expects his initiatives will save hundreds of millions. He said a more exact figure will be developed as he works with agency heads, Scott and other officials to refine his proposals over the summer.

Some of his ideas and those proposed by the task force will require legislative action, but Wilkins said he’s focusing first on those that can be accomplished without legislation.

Several of the unpaid task force members said they would be willing to lobby lawmakers to ensure their recommendations are not forgotten.

The panel, though, dropped a proposal recommended by one of its committees to limit how much doctors can charge primarily to workers compensation patients for prescription drugs they repackage.

The proposal would save an estimated $250 million but it’s been a hotly contested issue in the Legislature for years. It pits doctors against business interests that back the proposal.

Task force chairman Abraham Uccello, a Sarasota business consultant, said he didn’t want to jeopardize the panel’s work over the proposal. It has generated allegations some task force members had a conflict of interest, which Uccello called baseless.